ISB Coaches Team Meeting Agenda


Date: Fri., Aug 28 2009
Time: 12:30-2:00
Place: MS Skybox
Facilitator/Timekeeper:
Dennis
Recorder: Kim
Purpose:
Understanding = U Informing = I
Recommending = R Deciding = D

Participants: Teresa, Kelly, Kim, Jeff, Dennis, Troy
Task
Guiding Question
Background/ Process
Person / Time
Warm-up
How's the week been? (IA training and Visible Thinking Conference)
Round Robin
Time spent update
All (15 min)
Parent Education (Sept. 2)
How can we build understanding amongst our parent community?
Finalize
Kim
(15 min)
Content & Methods
What is the main "content" we want teachers to have
and what are the key methods we want in practice?

Two column chart
Think-Pair-Share
Teresa
(30 min)
Professional Learning
What is the plan for Sept 17 PD?
Overview
Feedback
Teresa
(15 min)
Closure
What have we done well in our meetings so far?
To what degree have we been sticking to our norms?
Shall we start our book discussion next week?

+s, Deltas, Suggestions
Teresa
(15 min)
Parking Lot – Items on our plate for future meetings:


IA Training:
  • Went well with Tech group ... but IA's do NOT have computer access except teacher computers
    • No policy in place about getting them computers (follow up with Chad)
  • Provide a forum/question box for them to send questions that can be responded to, give anonymous aspect
  • Questions/notes for IA's to write on, not turned in, talk in Thai, take notes, share in English
  • Science/Inquiry group ... went well in first half
    • some issues came up in the meeting, control issues of equipment
    • seniority issues - might have to work within for all groups, cultural
  • Mathematics IA group - good session, very receptive, very open to ideas
    • not sure about how IAs are used in the classroom
    • want to get them Internet access so they can have more connection to the students

PARENT EDUCATION
  • Parents go to the session they want to go to, not meet in one area
    • 7:30-8:30 - Kelly, CO - Science, PreK-2
    • 8:30-9:30 - Jeff,Kim, CO - Tech, PreK-2
    • 7:30-9:30 - Troy, ES MPR - Math, 3-5
  • Do it this time, but consider changing for future
    • Every other week?
    • Every week, rotate groups?
    • Daily ... every hour on the hour ... :)
  • Need to get signs posted
  • Kim's idea about Blogging ...

VISIBLE THINKING CONFERENCE
  • AMAZING! FUN, TOO!
  • David Perkins, Keynote
    • Create a culture, leader's responsibility to set norms
    • Language we use, inhibiting or facilitating?
  • Mark Church
    • Learning activities, Cultures of Thinking vs. cultures of thinking
    • How do we bump up the activities to get thinking opportunities (Annelies brought presentation home)
    • Examples for: Math, Science, Language Arts ... works across, not just within
    • Create from scratch, but also take current activities that we value, get them to bring out understanding
  • Ron Richards
    • What do we want the children we teach to be like as adults?
      • learn, ethics, celebrate diversity, etc. (typical results)
      • want them to be good at science, math, etc. (very few responses typically)
    • We make them technically expert in CONTENT, but what we say we value is residual compared to the content that we really want them to get in school
    • We teach in disciplines ... more and more math, history, science - Why not doing more in the discipline and how it applies to their lives beyond the school, understand the world better?
    • Ability, Value, When/Where, Motivation to ... we want children to get all parts
  • Perkins
    • Ohm's Law ... your strength = your push / the resistances
      • Get Dennis to tell the story again if you forget ... :)
  • Other presentations:
    • Controversial Art - ethics
  • Consider taking the KEY IDEAS and figuring out each week how they connect to the vision, mission, and what we are doing in the classroom.

CONTENT & METHODS
Talking with Maggie, what is the content you want developed? what are the methods?
  • METHODS
    • Real world application
    • Build/activate background knowledge through experiences
    • Opening/guiding questions
    • All learners know outcome - real life purpose
      • continue to revisit
    • Collaboration
    • Communication for understanding
      • teacher to teacher
      • teacher to student
      • student to teacher
      • student to student
    • Communicate your understanding (Metacognition)
      • drawing
      • speaking
      • acting out (not like Jeff does in our meetings though)
      • writing
      • explaining it to others
    • Multiple Intelligences
      • different paths to the same outcome
    • Utilizing class experts in the room, everyone learns together, Kumbayah ...
      • Moving people from novice to expert, no matter who they are (us included)
    • Monitoring where kids are continuously
    • Building strategies to learn how to learn ... empowering kids to take on learning
    • Reflection for the community
      • teachers
      • students
      • have to have both
      • what to actually do with them?
    • Risk Takers - MODELING Risk Taking!
      • Safe environment, stretch from where you are ... Vygotsky, Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
      • Students with technology ... play, lose, lose, lose, win, WOOHOO, move to next level
      • Teachers with technology ... not as willing to take the risk
      • You can not learn from the MISTAKES you do not make ... See Vu's door!
    • Connect Fields, Ideas, and Concepts
      • transfer of skills
      • generalization and application
      • multiple situations
    • Exploration
    • Allowing Time
    • Socio-constructivism
  • ALIGNMENT: Method, Philosophy, Learning ...
    • We want to get there, Kelly is hearing people say that they finally feel we are there

FOCUS ON: Effective questions strategies ... future meetings, future coaching
FOCUS ON: Whether teachers are providing thinking opportunities for students or is it just regurgitation of facts? Bump it up ... boom ... uh huh ... bump it up ...

What if we pick top three to focus on and work with teachers on ...
WE NEED TO MONITOR WHERE PEOPLE ARE AT ... We need to understand how to help teachers, differentiate learning at the adult level
Voice overs with each other

SEPTEMBER 17th PD DAY
NO Kimbo ... Slacker!

READ CHAPTER 1 OF THE COACHING BOOK FOR NEXT WEEK ...








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